Offering a foreigner's view on Korean TV and movies

Drinking Solo: Underneath that beer bottle

Aww. Like I said previously, Drinking comes across as rather slapstick, with characters whom I won’t even call “quirky” but juz downright bizarre. However, the clowns in Drinking are also rather sad — either they suffer from low self-esteem (Ha-na), are bogged down with pressure to succeed (the Noryangjing students), or they are hiding some form of loneliness (Jin-woong and Jin-yi).

As Drinking‘s narrative progresses, the sad faces behind the clowns start to appear more often. Jin-yi has a long running boyfriend who juz refuses to commit to a long term relationship (aka marriage), leading her to resort to using pregnancy as a last resort to push him into tying the knot. Someone should tell her this is the worst method. Inherently, she knows he isn’t serious, and should break up with him…but she is dragging her feet on it. Jin-woong, who really is THE clown with all his voice acting, turns out to be the saddest one. He tells everyone he has to rush home by 10pm to his “wife”, only Drinking reveals he not only divorced years ago, but the “wife” in question is his ailing mother who suffers from dementia. With her passing, Jin-woong is really alone.

It makes Ha-na’s insecurities appear tiny as compared to the issues her two other colleagues face. And thankfully, she sees that. It makes for her rejection of Jung-suk’s advances all the more sweeter, since in Drinking, he is the ONLY one who appears to have no issues. Or rather, he has the biggest issue, but he is blind to it. Although Jung-suk claims he prefers to drink along cos of (yawnz) quality time blahblah, he really is juz one pathetic lonely guy who doesn’t have a single friend. Blame it on his arrogance and selfishness. Plus rudeness, inconsideration, etc. In short, zero EQ.

Well, it is high time Jung-suk wakes up to who he is. If he really wants to engage in a romantic relationship with Ha-na.